Fan Theory: Aladdin is Set in a Distant Post-Apocalyptic Future

A popular Disney theory contends that the movie Aladdin is set in the distant future, rather than the past, and that this can be proven by many hints dropped by Genie in the movie.

For instance, during the middle of Aladdin’s make-over into Prince Ali Ali Ababwa, Genie comments that his fez and vest combo is “much too third century”. But when Genie emerged from his lamp earlier in the movie, he announced that “10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck”. Since Genie has been locked away in his lamp for all that time and has not seen the latest fashion trends, we must deduce that Aladdin is set in the year 10,300 at the earliest.

Moreover, Genie is voiced by the versatile Robin Williams and can’t help but impersonate many 20th Century personalities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rodney Dangerfield and Jack Nicholson. This would put the date back even later – Aladdin must take place after the year 11,970.

If Aladdin is indeed set in the future then we can rationalise most of the ‘magical’ elements in Aladdin‘s world. For example, the magic carpet isn’t a ‘magical carpet’, he’s simply a remnant of hover-technology that was hidden in the Cave of Wonders, presumably to keep it safe from an expected nuclear war that turned the world into a vast empty desert. Similarly, the parrot Iago isn’t just another anthropomorphic Disney character, either he’s the result of a society so obsessed with its pets they developed technology to understand their animals’ thoughts, or a mutation caused by nuclear fallout.

Furthermore, Agrabah isn’t even a real place in the Middle East. Instead, it may be some form of future corruption of the names Arabia, Afghanistan and Egypt, used as a generalisation since specific nation states would be irrelevant in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Advocates of this Aladdin theory have also looked beyond the motion picture to the Aladdin videogames for further evidence. To illustrate, in one videogame you can find bones of the supposed nuclear war’s dead, buried 20th Century road signs and unexploded nuclear bombs.